


Eighteen to Forty Two

by ffrindyddraig



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alex is also a crap father, Alex is not OK, British spelling, Depression, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Medical Experimentation, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Vietnam War, mentions of adultery, not Apocalypse compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffrindyddraig/pseuds/ffrindyddraig
Summary: When you're eighteen you realise once you saved the world, all you can go from there is down. Five months later, curled up in a squat trying to keep warm, you realise you went down hard.





	Eighteen to Forty Two

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea in my head of Alex being Scott's father, and because I can never let the Summers just be happy, this happened. See the end for more warnings.

When you're eighteen you realise once you saved the world, all you can go from there is down. Five months later, curled up in a squat trying to keep warm, you realise you went down hard.

When you're twenty, Xavier comes back into your life. He finds you, even though you don't even know where you are. Your life is a mess of cities and stealing and running and jails.

_I gave you a second chance_ , he says when he comes across you, trying to get some sleep in a doorway, your face punched in because you don't know how to stay out of a fight. _And this is how you spend it?_

You tell him to fuck off. He's not your father. Your real father died, and your fake one disowned you when you ended up in jail for murder.

And then he says Sean is dead.

You follow him back to Westchester. Last time you were here, Xavier said you were welcome to stay for as long as you wanted. You lasted a month in this expensive tomb before you had to get out. After what Xavier did to Moira, it was only a matter of time.

Xavier, Hank and you were the only ones to turn up to the funeral. You find out his mum is dead, and his dad's a loser who doesn't give a shit his boy's six feet under. Sean didn't have any friends. He was a junkie. Died of an overdose in an abandoned house. Nobody found the body for a week. This is how heroes die. You wonder if you should of gone with him, when he left the mansion. He asked you too. You didn't. You may of saved the fucking world together, but you weren't friends.

You wonder if he'll still be alive if you did. Then you wonder if you'll be dead too. The second one appeals to you more than it should.

Xavier begins telling you about his dream of starting a school for mutants and you just walk away. He calls after you, reminding you three are the only ones left who are not dead or evil. You don't stop walking.

When you're twenty one, you end up in Nebraska. You get a job as a cook and rent a flat and somehow it sticks. You come home and sit in an empty flat and count down the seconds in till you can die. You feel bad, because your alive and Sean isn't and your still wasting your life. Then you do it again the next day.

Then you met her. Kathy. She was a waitress, and _normal_. After girls who were shape shifters and diamonds and had wings, you needed normal. She was also married. And, because that wasn't enough to stop you, the fact her husband was an abusive fuck who wouldn't think twice about killing both you and her should of. It didn't. In fact, sometimes you think the thought of him murdering you is the only thing you find attractive in this whole affair. You lost your virginity to her, not that she knows that. She doesn't know a thing about you, really.

When you're twenty two, she tells you she's pregnant. She says it's yours. You don't believe her. You're too young and fucked up to have a kid. You try and ignore it, but she starts to show, and you quit your job, leave the flat and enlist.

Under the bodies and gunfire, pain and death, you forget about Kathy and your child. The guilt you feel about leaving them is lost to the guilt of those who you can't save, of those who die while you live.

When you're twenty five you realise you can't die. You came to Vietnam expecting to leave in a body bag. You tell them you're a mutant so they keep you on longer than they should, give you more and more dangerous missions. You survive them all. Other's are not as unlucky. Sometimes, you hate your fellow soldiers, sometimes when you hear them screaming as they die slowly, you are glad you are not them.

When you're twenty seven, the war ends. After fighting, laying down your life, they still won't let you go. Mystique saves you. As you leave to get on the plane to take you back home, not that you have a home or anyone who cares about you, she leans in close. _Don't you ever learn?_ She asks.

You don't plan on keeping in contact with her, but she has other plans. She needs a soldier, and you end up agreeing because you've been one since Xavier walked into your prison cell when you were seventeen.

When you aren't killing, or blowing things up, or fucking Mystique, you drink. Forget the world with a bottle in a crap caravan in the middle of nowhere. Each mission you hope you die, and each time you come back. You would do it yourself, if you weren't such a coward.

When you are thirty, you look in the mirror and realise you still look a decade younger. You hate your mutation for giving you a life you don't want. Sometimes you lose yourself in another world, one without mutants. You're parents are alive, and your married to Kathy and you have that kid and a picket fence and a steady job and you've never killed or stole or drank and you never will. Reality always seemed that little bit more bitter after that.

When you are thirty four, Mystique gives you a mission. She only needs to whisper Stryker, and you agree to her bat shit crazy plan that lands you being a lab rat. You hope she sees the irony in saving you from a fate, before sending you in to exactly what she saved you from.

There is a man with red eyes and you could of swore you saw them before you became a murder. They dig about inside him and test him and decide he's too old to be any use to them, and you think you're going to die right there and then.

You don't.

They throw you into a room, tie you to a chair, and you think leaving you to starve to death is not the most effective way of doing it. It's not the way you imagined going out. They put a kid in the room with you, and he fights like a wildcat until his guard gets him on his knees and forces his eyes open. You think finally.

Only it doesn't work. You just absorb it until you can't take anymore and just explode. In that room, debris around them, the boy - no more than thirteen or fourteen - crawls up to you, deadly eyes tightly shut.

_Who the fuck are you?_ He hisses, before he's dragged away, and you're left on the floor, a dead guard less than a foot away. Part of you wonder if you really are immortal. Then those red eyes are back.

_Interesting_ it says, and you never heard a voice as cold as that before, freezing you to your bones even though you're just fire. _It seems mutant parents are immune._

Before you can even process that, Mystique comes in firing.

You all get out, the kid included. Your kid, if you believe red eyes, which you do. He becomes another person you let down. You go to apologise to him, though sorry doesn't exactly cover never once giving a fuck about him. You're glad you're stopped before you reach him, by another kid with a mean face. You tell him you're his father. And the kid replies _Scott's mine_. And you swear his eyes flash red, and really you should of stayed, but you realise that you just learnt your own child's name. You turn around and plan on never looking back, but for some insane reason you leave your address. 

Two days later, Xavier, who knew because of course he knew, and he couldn't keep his damn brain out of other people's business, phones you up and tells you Scott's ran away. You wonder if he took the address you left him, then you drink yourself into forgetting it all. You can't stop thinking about red eyes.

_Good_ you say and hang up. You don't want your son to be another piece in Xavier's army.

When you're thirty seven, Scott turns up at your door. You wouldn't of recognised him if it wasn't for those stupid red glasses that stopped him killing everything in his sight. You realise time slipped past without you noticing. It's been eight years of you living in the same spot. You watch him dither outside your door, wondering if he should knock. He looks like his mother. You open the door before he makes up his mind.

_I killed Nate_ he says, and you have no idea who Nate is, and you don't really care. You wonder why he came to you. You think this is your time to be a father. You step aside and let him in.

He sleeps on your couch and drinks your beer and eats your food and you barely speak to each other. A month in you break the silence that always blanketed your house, only know there was two people it suddenly felt awkward, and not comfortable like it was before, and you asked him if he should be at school. Scott smiled, only it wasn't a real smile, but a sick imitation of one. He inherited that off you. He tells you _I haven't been to school since I was eight years old and men stormed my house and shot my mother in the head._

You left the house when he said that. Went to a bar. Got shit-faced. And cried. Cried for the first time since you became a murder. It never occurred to you Kathy was dead. You realised you loved her. You realised this was the first time you felt something in years. You came back, eyes still red from crying. You never mentioned it again, and neither does Scott.

When you're thirty eight you nearly die. Mystique gives you a mission and somehow Scott managed to worm his way into coming along. There's a gun, and a bullet, and you step in front of it for your child. You survive, and Scott yells at you, and you realise the kid wants to die just as much as you do. You tell Mystique you can't do this anymore. She agrees. Gives you a hug. Whispers _I hope you get better_.

You don't think you can.

When you're thirty nine you move to a new town and play happy families. You tell everyone Scott's your brother, because you may of got some wrinkles, but not enough for anyone to believe you have a teenage son. You get a job, and try and convince Scott to go to school. He skips, another thing he must of inherited from you, and you soon realise he can't read, and you stop fighting him. Turns out he's a whizz at engines though, and you have no fucking idea who that comes from.

When you're forty you realise you have a type : married waitresses. She's called Lorna, and you think she's the girl of your dreams. Suddenly you start feeling alive again. You tell her about your mad plan of running away, starting somewhere new. Five months later she says _this just isn't working out_. For the first time in your life, you get dumped. You drink more after that. Lose your job. You wonder how much you have to drink to die.

When your forty one Scott has enough. He punches you, tells you to sober up and stop wasting your life. Scott had never saved the world, he could go upwards. You tell him this, he punches you again. You punch him back, and next thing you know you're fighting. You kick the shit out of him, he knocks a chair over your head. You lay side by side on the floor, laughing as blood bubbles out your nose. Fucking great dad you are.

_You don't understand_ you tell him, and he snorts, _you never dated a girl before_. He stares at you for a second, before standing up. He winces as he does so, holding his ribs.

_I am dating someone_ he says, and leaves. And it suddenly hits you that the kid is hardly home anymore and you wonder if he even lives here anymore.

You pick yourself off the floor and you decided right then to sort out your life. You tip out all your alcohol and tidy your place, and have a shower for the first time in far too long.

You begin to see red eyes everywhere. You begin to think you never escaped.

A week later you start drinking again.

When you're forty two, you go to your first wedding, and become a granddad. You think it's strange how Scott never felt like your kid, but Nate (you ask Scott why he named it after someone he killed, he said Maddie picked the name) feels like your grandchild. You hold the tiny bundle in your arms and you wish you were there for Scott when he was this small.

You still see red eyes everywhere.

When you're forty two, you see them on Scott's next door neighbour (he got the wife and the kid and the picket fence and it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth) and you punch him. He doesn't go down, like you think he will. Instead he turns and you realise you weren't imaging it at all. The face changes and suddenly you're looking at the one in the lab, the one who watched you commit your first murder.

You try and ask who the hell he is, but your mind is cloudy and nothing make sense. He's saying something, though you can't work out what. He pulls a gun out. An old Victorian thing, and for some reason that makes perfect sense. He puts it against your forehead, and you should feel something other than relief.

As he pulls the trigger, you pray you will die.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings : Major Character Death, Violence between children and parents and mentions of domestic abuse, Mentions of Drug Overdose, Not a happy ending
> 
> Thanks for Reading


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